Senate appropriators have abandoned plans to mark up two spending bills Thursday that have become mired in a partisan dispute over abortion policy.

The Appropriations Committee announced it will postpone consideration of its fiscal 2020 Labor-HHS-Education bill and its State-Foreign Operations bill. As of Wednesday evening, the panel still planned to take up its Defense and Energy-Water bills at a full committee markup, along with a measure that would divvy up total discretionary spending among the 12 subcommittees.

Sen. Elizabeth Warren is one of the eight Democratic presidential candidates who appear in an ad from former Rep. Gabrielle Giffords’ organization’s Gun Safety President ad campaign. (Giffords via YouTube)

Eight of the top Democratic presidential candidates are appearing in a series of videos on gun safety. Former Arizona Rep. Gabrielle Giffords’ namesake gun control group, Giffords, launched the video series on Monday.

A national progressive group is spending over $100,000 on a campaign to pressure Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and other Republican senators to pass a bill to provide $600 million in election security funding.

The group, Stand Up America, has rented a billboard alongside the Kennedy Bridge near McConnell’s office in downtown Louisville, Ky., from Sept. 1 through Sept. 9 that includes an image of McConnell’s face and the message, “Tell Mitch McConnell: Stop blocking election security funding.”

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., told a radio interviewer he would not post gun measures for a vote unless President Donald Trump indicates he would sign them. (Photo by Caroline Brehman/CQ Roll Call)

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell said Tuesday he expected to know next week whether President Donald Trump would be supporting new gun-related legislation in the aftermath of recent mass shootings.

The Kentucky Republican was asked in an interview about criticism he has received from Democrats for not putting House-passed background check bills on the floor. McConnell reiterated to conservative radio host Hugh Hewitt that the Senate would not be holding another series of test votes on firearm measures that have no chance of being signed into law.

A border security officer searches migrants before transferring them by bus to the McAllen Border Patrol facility in Los Ebanos, Texas, in July. The Trump administration is challenging a court order that limits the time children can be detained. (John Moore/Getty Images file photo)

The Trump administration is moving to end a court settlement that limits its ability to hold migrants who cross the border into the United States, the Department of Homeland Security announced Wednesday, potentially allowing for indefinite detention of children with their parents.

President Donald Trump and his administration for years have chafed at the limitations resulting from the settlement, known as the Flores agreement. Acting Homeland Security Secretary Kevin McAleenan said Wednesday the new policy would get rid of an interpretation of Flores that has “substantially caused and continued to fuel” a migrant crisis at the southern border.

Former Colorado Gov. John Hickenlooper, shown in Iowa on Saturday, announced Thursday he is ending his bid for the presidency. (Stephen Maturen/Getty Images)

Former Colorado Gov. John Hickenlooper ended his campaign for the 2020 Democratic presidential nomination on Thursday, and said he will consider a run against Republican Sen. Cory Gardner in a battleground state Democrats need to win to take control of the upper chamber.

“People want to know what comes next for me,” Hickenlooper said in a statement. “I’ve heard from so many Coloradans who want me to run for the United States Senate. They remind me how much is at stake for our country. And our state. I intend to give that some serious thought.”

Democratic presidential candidate and Ohio Rep. Tim Ryan is leading a caravan of gun law reform activists 376 miles from his hometown of Niles, Ohio, to Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell’s hometown of Louisville, Kentucky.

The caravan, co-led by the gun control group Moms Demand Action, will make its sixth and final stop Thursday at City Plaza next to the Muhammad Ali Center in downtown Louisville for a rally at 7:30 p.m.

National civil rights and gun violence prevention groups rally in Lafayette Square across from the White House on Tuesday. (Bill Clark/CQ Roll Call)

Protesters chanted “white supremacy has got to go” and “immigrants are welcome here” across from the White House on Tuesday at a rally sparked by mass shootings over the weekend that killed 31 people and injured many more.

Organized by a coalition of civil rights and gun reform groups, the rally demanded that President Donald Trump stop denigrating immigrants and that the Senate pass gun control legislation, including a bill that passed the House months ago requiring a background check for every gun sale.